Sustainable Beekeeping

As recipients of a $3,000 grant from the UW Medical School Healthy Classrooms Foundation, MG21 purchased a top-bar beehive designed for educational purposes. The grant was co-written by MG21 senior Louis Couture and MG21 staff members during the spring of 2017 in the Citizen Science class and the hive was established the following autumn. During the first year, MG21 students and staff have learned a lot about beekeeping and bee husbandry, and have experienced several successes, but ultimately failure. It is normal for novice beekeepers to lose their hives several times before gaining enough collective knowledge to successfully rear a beehive. Students were responsible for frequent hive inspections, hive maintenance and knowledge of bee life cycles and hive mind. Our hive suffered from colony collapse during late summer, but were still able to harvest wax. Students intend to reestablish the hive next spring.